UK Customs - 20% VAT on records over £15 from US + handling fee

OK, I'll admit I haven't read everything in the topic so if what follows is a duplicate of what has gone before I apologise.

Today I have been in 'conversation' with amazon.co.uk about one of their marketplace sellers who is based in the US. This seller tends to be very price competitive even if you were to buy the item from them through amazon.com's marketplace. From my correspondence with amazon.co.uk I was amazed to learn the following:

"And also please be assured that, If you have been asked to pay the customs/import duties on Marketplace item that was dispatched by a seller located outside EU, please contact the seller directly. In this particular case, the seller should be liable to cover these charges.

Participation agreement
2.1 Under the Service, items are offered by sellers for sale at a fixed price ("Fixed Price Sales"). Unless otherwise agreed by us with the seller in advance in writing, the price of any items sold using the Service (including the applicable delivery charge) are displayed inclusive of any customs, import, export, and excise duty, VAT and other taxes which may be applicable and sellers may not charge or seek to charge the buyer, or allow the buyer to be charged, for any customs, import, export, and excise duty, VAT or other taxes which are additional to the price displayed for the item on the Site."

This maybe common knowledge but the fact that an amazon.co.uk marketplace price is the price you pay was news to me. I always assumed if it came from the US you paid for duty, VAT and whatever else HMRC's agent could come up with.

FWIW, I have also had correspondence with play.com in the past whose position is identical to amazon.co.uk's and in play's case they have made a playtrade seller reimburse me all the customs/handling charges on an item where I was charged VAT.

 

That would take a lot of faith on the sellers part!

 

Regulars only.

 

Interesting, but I'm not sure I want to be having to claim back money from sellers every time I buy something over £15, as I'm sure most are not pre-paying VAT. Every US seller that gets stung by this is going to be one less seller on amazon.co.uk (or Play) i'd have thought?

 

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/foi/disc111220a.aspx

Settled. Back to the topic!

 

Indeed, this is a typical Amazon "customer is king" clause, which they have to abolish if too many people start making use of it. In the rest of the world, it's the buyer who is responsible for customs fees.

 

Which is how it should be, unless the seller can offer that service like Amazon.com does to me when I buy and ship to Canada. Other retailers will also collect duty on my behalf.

How can Amazon justify making the seller responsible for the customs policy in the buyers country? Bizarre if you ask me.

 

I guess Amazon position is that if the seller wants to be listed in the UK marketplace then either they ship from a country where UK buyers are not charged import duties or such duties are included in the price. If they are not prepared to pay those duties on behalf of the customer then they should not list their products in the UK marketplace. Thinking about it actually it makes sense.

 

I got the impression that it applies to amazon.com as well from what a poster above wrote "even if you were to buy the item from them through amazon.com"

amazon.com is the US website, which means more sellers are going to restrict sales to US only if they start having to pay someone else's taxes...

 

I've never come across a marketplace seller on amazon.com that would sell to me in the UK, so i'm not sure it would make much difference.

I agree - someone in the UK buying from a UK website shouldn't be stung for customs changes, I just see a lot of hassle ahead for both buyers and sellers now that HMRC appear to be 'catching' more parcels and the threshold value has been moved closer to the average cost of a new LP.